Primary Teachers Take Over KCSE Invigilation as KNEC Moves to End Secondary Teachers’ Role.
The Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) has confirmed that teachers from primary schools are going to invigilate the 2025 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) exams.
Secondary school teachers will however supervise KCSE, while principals will be in charge as centre managers.
KNEC asked the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to to deploy primary school teachers for invigilation duty in an effort to make the examinations more secure and reduce the number of cheating incidents that occur.
The KCSE exams will involve 10,765 centre managers, 12,126 bosses, 54,782 exam supervisors, 22,247 security personnel, and 2,692 drivers. The administrative shakeup is aimed at improving oversight, preventing any collusion during the exam sessions, and making sure everyone sticks to the rules.
Last year, a whopping 840 KCSE candidates had their results cancelled because they were involved in cheating, while 2,899 results were put on hold pending investigations.
KNEC said some of those instances were down to poorly run exam sessions where invigilators failed to do their job properly and there was some dodgy business going on between invigilators and candidates.
“Agreed with TSC this year that supervisors would be teachers from secondary schools, but the people keeping an eye on the exams at the centre would be teachers from primary school,” KNEC official said.
To make the exams even more secure, KNEC has introduced smart padlocks and other additional security features for the exam materials. Each exam paper is customised to the individual candidate, and there won’t be any extra papers.
Exam officials – centre managers, supervisors, and invigilators – are told to hand over their mobile phones before entering the exam centres to stop any early leaks of the questions.
Primary school teachers also get in on the action with the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment (KPSEA) and the Kenya Junior School Education Assessment (KJSEA). KPSEA wrapped up on Wednesday, while the KJSEA finishes up on Monday. Centres doing both assessments are under the watch of 24,213 centre managers, 26,479 supervisors, and 125,492 invigilators.
This year, a total of 3.4 million students are taking part in the national exams. This includes 996,078 KCSE candidates, 1.29 million KPSEA students, and 1.13 million KJSEA students.
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The Ministry of Education has confirmed that KPSEA students will be moving on to Junior School (Grade Seven), while KJSEA students will be heading to Senior School (Grade Ten).
At the official launch of the KPSEA and KJSEA exams, Principal Secretary for Basic Education Julius Bitok reassured candidates that they’ll get a spot, saying that the available 2.4 million places in senior school far exceed the 1.4 million students who are registered for the transition.
Primary Teachers Take Over KCSE Invigilation as KNEC Moves to End Secondary Teachers’ Role.
